Out of the Ashes we Rise

Ash Wednesday Worship at Faith UMC:
February 22nd at 7:00 p.m.

This coming Wednesday, we will mark the beginning of Lent by coming together to put ashes on our foreheads.  Ash Wednesday worship is one of the least attended services in our congregation’s life and ministry.  The reasons for this vary, but I think a prominent one is that many find the imposition of ashes strange, and even depressing.  Yet, if we take a moment to think through the meaning of the ashes, perhaps we can be freed to see the beauty of Ash Wednesday.

The ashes take us back to the beginning, when God formed the first human being from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7).  When we place the ashes on our foreheads we remember that we are dust.  We have been created by God, and our very being is dependent upon God’s gracious, creative, life-giving presence.  

The reason we need ashes is because we often forget that we’re creatures of God.  Perhaps the best way to describe human sin is our tendency to forget God, and to think that we can determine our lives.  That’s what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1-7).  They chose to compete with God for dominance, and to choose their own path in life.  They forgot that they were nothing more than dust, and that their lives depended on God.

The result: “you are dust and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19c).  When we compete with God for dominance we lose.  We die.  We return to the dust from which we were created.  And so the ashes not only remind us that we are dust, but also that we will return to dust.  The wages of our sin is death (Romans 6:23).  The ashes are a chilling reminder that without God, we are nothing.

The ashes remind us that we are human and destined to die, unless God should choose to save us.  They invite us to turn toward God in repentance, to cry out for mercy, and to confess that we need a new path in life.  We need God to lead us out of the dust and into new life.

In sum, the ashes invite us to confess our sin and turn to God for mercy.  It may not be the most pleasant thing to do, but it’s necessary.  It’s like taking out the garbage: if you don’t remove the trash from your kitchen, not even a fresh baked apple pie will smell good.  Ash Wednesday invites us to take out the garbage so that our hearts might smell the goodness of God’s mercy and love.  It’s only when we root out our sin that we can see the goodness and mercy of God.

This Wednesday (3/5) at 7:00 I hope you’ll join us for Ash Wednesday service at Faith UMC.  We’ve planned an evening of deep personal reflection.  It’s a service that I hope will invite us to see that it’s okay –even a good thing – to put ashes on our foreheads.  After all, since the very beginning God’s been in the business of raising us up from ashes.